The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is revising its current plan for managing 3.6 million acres in southwest Wyoming. This amendment comes just a year after the agency adopted this current plan, which is still causing a lot of anger and confusion here in the Equality State. Wyoming Public Radio's (WPR) Managing Editor Nicky Ouellet spoke to WPR’s Caitlin Tan, who attended an open house where BLM staff were on hand to explain where things stand, where they're headed and to take public comment, which closes Dec. 18.
Editor's Note: This story has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Nicky Ouellet: Caitlin, give us some background on this situation.
Caitlin Tan: This is for the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP). As many of us might remember, it was adopted late last year and was in development for over a decade. But now the Trump administration is calling for an amendment based on Trump's ‘Unleashing American Energy’ executive order.
We don't know a lot about what could be amended. But based on that executive order, it gives us some hints, like prioritizing energy development and rescinding climate change conservation measures. And I should note, we are in the second stage of a 10-step National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, so we're in the very beginning here.
NO: Early days, and you've reported on this a lot. What's in place now is what the BLM advertised as trying to strike a balance between wildlife conservation and energy development. But leading up to that decision, there was a lot of tension. For a moment, it seemed like the BLM was going to go with a much more conservation oriented plan, and that caused a lot of anger.
CT: Yeah, that was back in summer of 2023 and it was super contentious, largely because this area is home to some of Wyoming's biggest natural gas fields, which kind of makes that the economic backbone for a lot of the [surrounding] communities. But then it's also home to pristine wildlife habitat. It supports the world's longest known mule deer migration route, largest pronghorn herd and the most condensed area of sage grouse. Ultimately, the conservation oriented plan was kicked out, and that isn't what's in place today, but it is still causing a lot of heartburn, which I'll get into later.
NO: Noted. Okay, so bring us back to this meeting at the Sweetwater Events Complex.
CT: There were a bunch of different BLM personnel, and it kind of looked like a high school science fair. Different people posted up by different poster boards, explaining different parts of the current RMP. There were lots of members of the public who came through, I would say, several dozen milling about, asking questions.
NO: What was the general vibe?
CT: A lot of confusion, and I would say even edging into anger at times. There were quite a few local politicians that were there, and a lot of people just weren't clear on what land use plan is even currently in place. It's been such a long, confusing process, and the document itself is hundreds and hundreds of pages long.
A lot of people who I talked to, it seemed like what they're mad about is what was in that conservation oriented draft. Once again, that isn't what was adopted. But I want to play you some of what I heard from the attendees and their concerns, and then how a BLM representative responded.
NO: Sounds great.
CT: Up first is Jerry Guillen. He's a lifelong Rock Springs resident who's worked in oil and gas. He was there with his wife, Donna. Guillen wants to see changes, because he thinks the current plan restricts road and trail access.
Jerry Guillen: Aspen Mountain, outside of town, that's been our playground since I was a kid. And there's actually people going up there, getting on our state roads, being arrested. That was right after the RMP came out last time, there were people getting tickets, threatened with being arrested and being arrested.
CT: I brought that concern to BLM’s Kimberlee Foster.
Kimberlee Foster: No, no. Not that. If they got a ticket, it may be something, you know, unrelated to the RMP for some other thing, but there's nothing in the RMP that would require that.
CT: Foster added that the RMP that's in place right now created two new areas where recreation is the top management priority.
I also bumped into Sen. Stacy Jones. She represents Rock Springs in the Wyoming Legislature. She's also worried about restrictions for recreation, but also business.
Stacy Jones: For our trona mines to expand, most of the people in Sweetwater County are employed by our trona mines. So it's a huge deal.
CT: In response, BLM’s Foster says that for the area that's known to have trona resources:
KF: There were no restrictions to trona.
NO: No restrictions on trona. But what about oil, gas and coal?
CT: There were several Sweetwater County Commissioners in attendance who were really worried about energy development access under the current plan. I asked Commissioner Robb Slaughter if he could point to some specifics.
Robb Slaughter: I know that they really cut back the amount that was available for coal as a comparison between what we had previously on oil and gas. I'm not sure.
CT: The current plan keeps a little over 70% of the area open to oil and gas leasing. That's about 2.5 million acres. Foster says, acreage wise, that's pretty much the same to what was open to oil and gas in decades past.
As for coal, technically, two bigger areas were closed in the plan to coal mining, the southern Wind River Range and Little Mountain.
KF: But both of those areas fall outside of that coal occurrence and development area, which means it's unlikely to – I mean, there's probably coal there – but it's unlikely to be mineable.
CT: The real gorilla in the room, though, are these areas that are totally off limits to energy development. They're called Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs). There's just shy of a million acres that are ACECs in the current plan, so about a quarter of the field office. That's where a lot of the energy development restrictions exist.
Before the current plan was adopted, Gov. Mark Gordon and the Sweetwater County Commissioners asked for the ACECs to be downsized, and that didn't happen as much as they wanted. Commission Chair Keaton West told me he doesn't think the data supports protecting all these areas.
Keaton West: It feels as more of a lock to keep out development rather than an actual purpose and need.
CT: But conservation groups widely dispute that. They say these wildlife habitat and migration routes are some of the best studied, and the data points to needing protections. Tom Christiansen, a former Game and Fish biologist, spoke about the Golden Triangle, which is in the southern Wind River Range area that's currently protected under an ACEC.
Tom Christianson: Largest sage grouse population on the planet, the mule deer and pronghorn migration corridor, an unfed elk herd of over 1,000 that all are essentially on top of each other, and it's no coincidence. It's because of that undeveloped landscape.
CT: Now, this one has been pretty confusing, especially lately. Some of the Golden Triangle area was included in a recent list of zones that might be leased for oil and gas next year. I asked BLM’s Acting State Director Kris Kirby.
Kris Kirby: We have taken a look at those, and I believe we're coming out December 17 with the next piece of public information on that, and it will show, I think, that those parcels are no longer being scoped.
NO: Where do things go from here?
CT: We’re early in this process, and the BLM hasn't put any specific changes on the table yet. That'll happen sometime this spring, when the agency releases a draft amendment. The public will get to comment again, and in theory, the whole process should be wrapped up by October 2 of next year.
NO: And this project is not being fast tracked like some others are.
